Review of Heaven Can Wait

"Heaven Can Wait" is a crushing bore and a candy-coated, misogynist lie. I can't imagine anyone but film students sitting through it today. Don Ameche is in almost every scene, and, while he has a mellifluous voice that no doubt contributed to his successful career in radio, he doesn't have the charisma to carry this film. Ameche plays Henry, a womanizer. Lubitsch wants to make Henry's sexual incontinence adorable and amusing, and so he directs Ameche to play the part as blandly as possible. The combination of Ameche's lack of charisma and Lubitsch's insistence on blandness results in a lead character who is both deadly dull and completely icky. You wouldn't want to spend any time with this man; he'd put you to sleep. You wouldn't leave him alone with your daughter, no matter her age. Something creepy would happen.

The movie's look is quite boring. Scene after scene consists of static, overly lighted, diorama-style shots of fastidiously dressed Gilded Age stuffed shirts and bustles lounging in excessively busy, Victorian parlors. There's so many ruffles and frills and curlicues, so much lilac and sky blue and pink, you need Dramamine.

This movie hates women as much as hardcore porn, but it presents that hatred with a candy coating and a sweet little bow on top. The contrast between the content of the message and its delivery is sickening. In one of the movie's most hateful scenes, an elderly woman is sent to hell because she's not physically attractive.